"But he is such an ass! I'm sure the other evening, when he trotted out his views on the Higher Criticism for your benefit, he made me feel positively ill."
"I found it very interesting; and if, as you say, he did it for my benefit, he certainly succeeded in his aim." There were limits to the patience of Elisabeth.
"Well, how women can listen to bosh of that kind I can not imagine! What can it matter to you what he disbelieves or why he disbelieves it? And it is beastly cheek of him to suppose that it can."
"But he is right in supposing it, and it does matter to me. I like to know how old-fashioned truths accord or do not accord with modern phases of thought."
"Modern phases of nonsense, you mean! Well, the old-fashioned truths are good enough for me, and I'll stick to them, if you please, in spite of Mr. Tremaine's overwhelming arguments; and I should advise you to stick to them, too."
"Oh! Chris, I wish you wouldn't be so disagreeable." And Elisabeth sighed. "It is so difficult to talk to you when you are like this."
"I'm not disagreeable," replied Christopher mendaciously; "only I can not let you be taken in by a stuck-up fool without trying to open your eyes; I shouldn't be your friend if I could." And he actually believed that this was the case. He forgot that it is not the trick of friendship, but of love, to make "a corner" in affection, and to monopolize the whole stock of the commodity.
"You see," Elisabeth explained, "I am so frightfully modern, and yet I have been brought up in such a dreadfully old-fashioned way. It was all very well for the last generation to accept revealed truth without understanding it, but it won't do for us."
"Oh! because we are young and modern."